1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for joining the ends of wood veneer strips.
2. Background of the Invention
The objective of wood veneering includes the lamination of a thin slice of expensive, furniture grade wood to the face of a structural substrate to obtain the esthetic grain and texture surface qualities of the expensive wood. Such veneer slices may be as thin as 0.010 inch, in random widths up to 24 inches and 8 to 10 feet long.
Width and length limitations on veneer slices are dictated by the characteristics of the tree from which the veneer wood is derived. Preferred veneer wood tree species rarely have continuously straight trunk sections in excess of 10 feet. Curved portions of a trunk, knots and limb sections are unsuitable for veneer shaving.
As classically applied by individual craftsmen, veneer length limitations created little difficulty since the veneer surface was not relied upon for structural integrity and the substrate provided a suitable surface against which adjacent strips may be butt or finger joined.
In recent years, veneer usage has been applied to articles of high production volume thereby requiring continuous or semi-continuous material supply lines. Responsively, veneer strips are lap sliced together with fiberglass scrim and hot-melt adhesive to produce continuous length sheets or tapes of any desired length which are reeled for shipment, marketing and use.
For a quality product of continuous length veneer, the adjoining edges of adjacent strips must exactly match along the common joint line.
The prior art technique for obtaining such exact joint matches has been to lap the ends of two veneer lengths over the cutting edge of a bed knife to cut both edges with the same stroke of the same shear knife.
This technique has proven less than satisfactory due to splintering and pulling of the lapped edges during the shear stroke.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to disclose a method and apparatus capable of shearing the ends of separate veneer strips along a precisely matching butt line.
Another object of the present invention is to disclose a machine that shears and joins the butt ends of two veneer strips under positive position control.